State Panchayati Raj Minister Pritam Singh convened a joint meeting for strengthening three-tier panchyat in Dehradun on Saturday. Members from Pradhan Sangathan and Pramukh Sangathan were present in the meeting.
Considering the demands of panchayat members, Singh assured them that their demands, primarily to give administrative and financial power to them, would be reconsidered in the next Cabinet meeting, especially focusing on 14 points out of 29 points under 11th Schedule.
It was also decided to include the suggestions highlighted by the Panchyat members to include in Panchyat Raj Act in the next Vidhan Sabha session. The gathering was told that Chief Minister had assured that funds for the development activities would be soon released. The members also demanded to consider geographical areas and the population of the localities while sanctioning financial funds for development activities from State Finance Commission.
Singh also assured that they would be given justified perks and salary, which are the yearlong pending demands of the Panchyat members. Singh said that they would be given remuneration out of the separate budget instead from the installments out of the allocated funds for the beneficiary projects and also assured them this would be primarily taken in the next Cabinet meeting.
Singh stated that he would urge the Uttarakhand Chief Minister to issue the budget of Rs 33.25 crore so that couple of beneficiary schemes completed in the given time frame and also assured that pending Rs 26.25 would be soon allocated to Panchyats.
Singh assured that every possible step would be taken to release the third and fourth installments from State Finance Commission for the financial year 2012-13. Surat Singh Negi, JP Shah, KS Pal and Kamla Chauhan were also present.